Good morning and welcome to this Sunday talk. Last week I talked out of my subject, about the loss of Tibet, while celebrating 4th of July, the Independence Day of the United States, which was great. We are very proud to be part of this. Not only is it the independence of a nation, but that of the greatest nation on earth that every existed, the United States. I am sorry to say, but I am very fortunate to be part of it. I am very proud to be part of it. What I meant by, “very sorry to say,” is the loss of my country. Yet, we found a home away from home, so we are very happy.
In that happiness, in that joy, my service to the people is to share whatever little I know about Tibetan Buddhism. In that we are talking about the principles – many important principles. We talked about so many four of this and four of that, like Four Noble Truths, and all these segments of four. So this time we chose to talk about three: the Three Higher Trainings of Mind. I did talk a lot about morality, but morality, many people think is not important. But it is extremely important. It is like a mother who gives birth to a child. The faith and morality. When I talk about faith, I am not talking about ordinary blind faith. I am talking about extraordinary, intelligent faith. Intelligent faith is really bottom line, you develop faith because you have a solid reason. Either it helps you repeatedly or it contributed something better for you and you know it is working better and then faith is developing on that sort of ground. And that is intelligent faith.
The faith where somebody tells you that you have to believe it, that you cannot think otherwise, if you think otherwise you will go into suffering and hell realms and this and that, that happens in all traditions, including Buddhism. It happens and that is blind faith. Blind faith is dangerous. Intelligent faith is must as well as is very important, like a mother who gives birth to a child. It is important, like that. So morality is equal to faith. And that is not the morality that we always think about, like sexual orientation, etc. That is not the morality we are talking about. Morality here is really keeping your own commitments and vows intact. That is the morality we are talking about. We are not talking about sexual orientations or anything. That is the morality. Without morality you are going to get nothing. According to Buddha, the human life we have today is based on perfect morality. The fundamental cause, the fundamental base to have such a wonderful human birth is based on good, perfect morality. It is that important. Without that we are not going to get a human rebirth. A lack of that morality makes you become a coyote or dog or any other possible rebirth, because you lack the basic foundation.
To make it more clear I am talking from the opposite side, as well as from the perfect cause side.
~ Gelek Rimpoche, Ann Arbor, July 12, 2015
